Morning meditation: On how our narratives shape our reality

What is a morning meditation? To help me build a habit of daily writing, I’m publishing a few thoughts here every morning about ideas that interest and inspire me, mostly drawn from ordinary life. I hope you enjoy them.

I confess I’m finding it harder than usual to concentrate on writing this morning. I have a tab of The Guardian open and am following the live updates on James Comey’s testimony before the Senate. It’s difficult to tear myself away. But daily practice is daily practice, so here we are.

“Narrative” is the word that keeps running through my mind today, as it has for many days since the presidential election, in particular how the narratives we subscribe to inform our perceptions of reality, and vice versa. In the West, we tend to assume that reality is what it is, that there’s an objective truth “out there” somewhere, a single answer that should settle all debate and lay competing narratives to rest. It would be so much easier if the world were that simple.

What I am coming to believe, more and more, is that much of Americans’ present division comes from deeply conflicting narratives about how the world works and why things are the way they are. We use these narratives to explain the events and unfoldings around us, often without realizing how quick we are to reject or downplay the things that don’t fit neatly into those narratives. Here’s a narrative, for example, that many readers of this article will be familiar with:

Many Americans are struggling more than they were 30 years ago, and the reasons are very clear. Tax cuts for the rich and lax regulatory rules mean that the wealthy and corporations aren’t paying their fair share. This leads to rising inequality, which drives up the cost of basic needs like housing, healthcare and education. No wonder so many middle class Americans are falling behind! Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are gutting the social safety net, making it even harder for working people to get ahead.

If you vote Democrat most of the time, you probably recognize this narrative well. You can probably also point to a number of specific examples that reinforce this narrative, too — perhaps the decline in tax rates among top earners over the past 30 years or the way incomes haven’t kept up with productivity. It may seem so obvious that you have a hard time understanding how anyone could possibly disagree unless they’re stupid or ignorant.

Here’s another narrative, one that the average Medium reader may be less familiar with:

Many Americans are struggling more than they were 30 years ago, and the reasons are very clear. Too many people just aren’t paying their fair share into the system anymore. They sit back and let the government take care of them. Meanwhile, hardworking taxpayers are expected to pay for their free healthcare and food stamps, and the Democrats in Congress just keep asking for more. No wonder so many middle class Americans are falling behind! Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

If you vote Republican most of the time, this narrative likely hits much closer to home. Like our theoretical Democrat above, you can also point to a number of specific examples that reinforce the narrative — perhaps the rise in disability recipients in recent years or how rising Medicaid enrollment puts a strain on state and local budgets.

You may be able to guess which narrative aligns more closely to my own worldview, but that’s not really my point. My point is that the narratives in which we believe will deeply, often unconsciously inform the information we seek out, the way we interpret that information and the subsequent story we tell ourselves about why the world is the way it is. We weave our reality to fit with our narrative, not the other way around.

There have always been competing narratives that inform and shape the American political landscape, but they seem to be diverging more and more dramatically. It’s why Hillary Clinton supporters in Chicago, IL, can’t comprehend how so many people could vote for Trump after his leaked comments about grabbing women “by the pussy” came out. It doesn’t fit with the narrative that such blatant sexism should be an automatic dealbreaker for anyone seeking public office.

And it’s also why Trump supporters in Hillsboro, OH, may find such behavior distasteful but won’t change their minds because of it. It doesn’t fit with the narrative that there are more important issues to deal with than a few crass remarks.

It doesn’t fit with the narrative.

When I find myself baffled by the state of national politics and the wide range of ways I see Americans respond, I try to understand the different narratives that could be at work and imagine how, if I believed in those narratives, I might come to the same conclusions, too. It would be so much easier, and perhaps more emotionally satisfying, to cling to the narratives I like best and denounce people who disagree as ignorant, clueless idiots, but doing so would only deepen the chasms that exist between us these days.

What I find most interesting is that, if you go beyond policy and political identity and ask questions in a way that doesn’t threaten our dearly-held narratives, Americans across the political spectrum have more in common than we collectively think. We want good-paying jobs, quality healthcare and affordable housing. We want to be able to send our children to college and retire one day with dignity. Most of us want to avoid going to war, and most of us agree that women, minorities and (perhaps to a lesser extent but still, I’d argue, increasingly) LGBTQ individuals should have equal rights and protection under the law.

There are still vast differences and disagreements about the best way to accomplish those things, along with profound ideological differences related to abortion rights, religion and immigration, to name a few. I don’t mean to downplay these differences in any way, nor to suggest that we should accept and empathize with all of them carte blanche. I’m not arguing that we should cultivate warm and fuzzy feelings for white supremacists or anti-abortion activists who believe abortion should be illegal even when the mother’s life is in danger.

But maybe we could do a better job of seeking to understand the many narratives at work in American society today, rather than retreating blindly into our own. Maybe, just maybe, we bear some responsibility for these deep divisions, too.